


A Fan's complete SBurb Guide

by theycallmedean



Category: Homestuck
Genre: It's in the future, SBURB Guide, Sburb Is Just A Game
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-01 02:36:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10912587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theycallmedean/pseuds/theycallmedean
Summary: It's the 33rd Century. Thanks to advances in technology, a game was created based off a centuries old webcomic. Now I'm gonna write a guide on just how to play it!





	1. Table of Contents

Table of Contents:

Preface: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 2  
A message from the author  
Guide overview

Introduction: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3  
What to expect  
A brief overview on roles  
The character creation/selection  
A brief rundown on stats  
Game options

Pre-Entry: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4  
The Entry process  
Crucial game structures  
All about Sprites  
Entry items

Entry: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 5  
My house has been teleported, what now?  
Building  
The Gates  
What to do in serious worse case scenarios

Alchemy guide: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 6

Strife, and the Strife specibus: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 7  
The 5 kinds of weaponkinds  
Commonly used specibi  
Aspect damage

Captchalogue cards and the Sylladex: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 8  
Sylladex modus guide  
Weaponizing your inventory

Early game: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 9  
Alchemy suggestions  
Scampering to the first gate  
Exploring the land

Random Generation: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 10  
Lands  
Dungeons  
The Alpha Timeline  
The rule of Alchemy item generation.

 

 

Land tidbits of interest: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 11  
Consort Villages  
Important Landmarks  
Consort society structures

Dream moons/selves: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 12  
The Dream Moons  
Dreamself mechanics  
The locals  
Places of interest

Underlings: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 13  
Common underlings  
Rare underlings  
Prototypings

Some general SBurb information: ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 14  
Abilities  
Fraymotifs  
Ascension  
The Others  
Revelawesomes

Exiting Early game: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 15  
Land Quests  
Weird Plot Shit  
The 7th gate

The Denizen/Mid game entry: -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 16  
Who’s your Denizen?  
“Fighting” the damn thing  
The Land is healed

Mid game: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 17  
What the hell do I do now?  
Sequence breaking  
Cleansing the land  
The Forge  
Frog Breeder

God tier: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 18  
Dreamself Ascension  
Realself Ascension  
Perks and benefits  
Sprite Ascension

 

 

A brief overview of Mythological Roles: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 19  
Role assignment  
Titles  
Title “classes”/Passive and Active Titles  
DLC/Modded Roles

Combat Class Titles, Page and Knight: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 20

Knowledge Class Titles, Seer and Mage: ------------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 21

Mythical Class Titles, Witch and Sylph: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 22

Prodigy Class Titles, Heir and Maid: --------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 23

Redistribution Class Titles, Rouge and Thief: ------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 24

Destroyer Class Titles, Prince and Bard: ------------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 25

Breath: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 26

Light: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 27

Time: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 28

Space: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 29

Blood: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 30

Mind: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 31

Rage: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 32

Doom: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 33

Heart: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 34

Hope: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 35

Life: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 36

Void:  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 37

Late Game: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 38  
The Beginning of the End  
Special Weapon types  
Preparation for End Game

The Battlefield: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 39  
That thing in the centre of Skaia  
Fall of the White army

The Reckoning: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 40  
Beating the Clock  
CHECKMATE

The fall of Darkness: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 41  
Delivering the frog  
The creation of a new Universe  
The Universe Door

Post End-Game: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 42  
Hall of Success  
Thanks for playing

What to do when things go horribly wrong: --------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 43  
Ways to save the session  
In event of permanent death

Scratching the Session: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 44  
The Scratch structure  
How to tell if you’re in a scratched session  
Escaping the Scratch

Ringwraith Scenario: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 45  
When you give a Jack a Ring  
How to defeat a Ringwraith

Hostile takeover Scenario: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 46  
The Batterwitch  
Foreign invaders  
Brainwashed players

Dream Bubbles: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 47

Corruption: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 48  
What is Corruption?  
Corruption examples

Important/exclusive items: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 49  
Sprite Pendant  
Jujus

?????: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 50

Aspect synergy examples: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 51  


Game Size Theory: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 52

A Conclusion: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 53


	2. Preface

A Message from the Author

 

To whoever's reading this, hi! I'm Hailey. A lot of people probably know about the game SBurb. This is a guide to playing it, and some other facts and features? I dunno. This is the first time I've ever written a game guide.

Before I begin to describe this game, a bit of history is needed. A few years ago a centuries old webcomic named Homestuck was found through some timestamps of Earth Internet. As people began to read, and learn about what was once the fandom, it had found brand new life. Love it or hate it, it had become freaking huge. So huge that a bunch of insane people actually tried to make a GAME out of it. The result was the stupidly over-complicated game known as SBurb. Built with Virtual Reality in mind, SBurb is a Co-op randomly generated open world RPG. A CRGOWRPG if you will. The game was met with a whole shitload of phrase thanks to how huge and diverse the gameplay could even be! It did however get a lot of panning for several reasons. One of them being the many, MANY difficulty spikes littered throughout the game. Not only that, but the game used such advanced coding scripts and heavy amounts of random generation there have been reports of weaker computers fucking EXPLODING.

Pro tip: Have a beefy computer for SBurb.

So with that out of the way, I decided to make this very guide to help players understand gameplay mechanics, what happens throughout the game, and all the terrible ways things can go seriously wrong. Like, holy shit. So many things.

 

Guide Overview:

This guide will cover a SHITTON of stuff about SBurb. I mean, it'd have to, SBurb is a huge ass game. So huge that I don't even think I'd be properly able to cover absolutely everything! Random generation is an ass for this kind of stuff.

First and foremost, we'll discuss character creation, entry, and all the things you should and shouldn't do when starting up the game. Once that's out of the way I'll discuss game mechanics, Mythological Roles (Or Classpects, whatever nickname they're given), what to do and what not to do in dire situations, some game rules and theories, and how much of a bad idea it is to prototype a weasel. No, I'm not joking.


	3. Introduction

What to expect:

SBurb is a HUGE game. As mentioned the Random Generation makes this game massive. But even without the random generation SBurb has a shit-ton of features. Gameplay wise however, this game will try to kill you. It’ll do everything in its power to stomp on you, crush you in ways you never thought possible, make you forge new friendships and make enemies, and along the way you might learn something new about yourself, maturing along the way. In other words, it’s one of _those_ games. You know the ones, games that’ll make you experience a rollercoaster of emotion. You’ll laugh, cry, and resent everything and everyone around you as you play this game.

Prepare to feel like shit a LOT of the time in this game.

Now that I have that out of the way, it’s time to address what you’re gonna do when you first start the game.

But before I do that, I need to address a pretty huge part of the game.

 

A Brief overview on Roles

In SBurb Terminology, your character’s class is known as the Mythological Role. Most players just refer to it as a Role, for short, or a Classpect. The Mythological Role is basically what your character is and will do through the session, along with what their powers shall be. Mythological roles are usually randomly assigned to players depending on their personality and other junk. If you’re in the Character Creator, on the other hand, you can choose your Role, but that’s just cheap.

A Role comes in two parts, the Title and the Aspect. In basic terminology, the Aspect is the element or force that you will have power over. The Title on the other hand is WHAT you do with your Aspect. Together the Title and Aspect create the role, and the player becomes the (Title) of (Aspect). I won’t go into much detail about these Titles and Aspects until Chapter 19-37, so hang tight. Or skip ahead, I don’t care.

 

The Character creation/selection

SBurb has a shitload of character options. Think of one of those life simulators, or an RPG that’ll you spend over an hour slaving on your character’s look. Most people just skip all that and use the Self Scanner, which pretty much replicates how the player looks, to the tiniest detail. VR is great, isn’t it? You also have a bunch of other options that can be used to tweak your appearance, or if you want you can create a Custom Character from scratch.

[Name] – Your character’s name. Duh.

[Gender] – Yeah, this is also your character’s gender. If you choose to make your VR self character the other gender, I’m not going to judge.

[Race] – Ooooh god no, I’m not gonna get into this just yet. Race in SBurb can affect SO MUCH SHIT it’s not even funny. I’ll probably have to set this up as a bonus chapter, or an alternate guide or something.

[Body Shape] – This allows you to tweak the shape of your body, from thin to thick, short to tall, muscular to meek, and even some skin colours and beauty marks.

[Face Shape] – I really don’t have to really describe this too hard, it lets you fine tune the details of your face. Simple as that! Jeez. Honestly a lot of people tend to make their custom characters look as fugly as possible with this.

[Age] – Believe it or not you can adjust your age in this game. There IS however some set limits. You can’t go any older than around 30, and younger than 9. If a player in real life is younger/older than these limits, the player’s character will be regressed to around 13-16. Pretty great to experience what it’s like to be a teenager again. If you’re under 10 years old though, prepare to be traumatized.

[Clothing] – Clothing is simple. It’s what you’ll wear when you start the game. You can choose stuff like colour, style, different sets of outfits like sleepwear. I’ll admit, the clothing is kinda limited, you’re going to have to make better, and cooler clothing through alchemy.

[Player Symbol] – The player symbol is the “logo” of your character. It’ll appear as your Pesterchum profile image, and typically appear on most of your clothing. Apart from the God Tier outfit though, as the Aspect symbol usually overrides the Symbol. I heard that both the Aspect icons and the Player Symbol can appear on some clothing, but I’ve never seen it before in game. The Symbol is fully customizable, but is usually randomly generated depending on the character’s interests.

[Personality and Traits] – Since it’s a VR game, SBurb can read your damn mind, identifying your interests, opinions, and character. If you’re making a custom character however you can change these at will.  
Note: Personality and Traits can ONLY be personalized for custom characters.

[Mythological Role] – I did just go over this, so this is pretty self-explanatory. If you’re choosing to create a custom character you’ll sometimes be able to choose the Role instead of it being randomly chosen. Otherwise the role will pretty much be selected depending on the character Personality.

 

A Brief rundown on Stats

SBurb, like any RPG, has its fair share of stats, but just a heads up! Beginning stats aren’t chosen by the player, but are randomly chosen. So, no you can’t spend all your stat points or whatever into strength. Instead the stats depend on your character’s body shape, and personality. But since there’s no real character menu in SBurb, most stats will be hidden. Revealing these stats can be done though several methods, including items, or just asking a Seer.

[Health Vial] – Your Health Bar. Simple, huh? As you take damage that meter over your head will indicate the amount of damage you can take before you keel over. If the vial is completely empty, the player will freaking die. Don’t worry though, enemies can drop Vitality Gel, and Sprites are capable of healing you.

[Grit] – While the official term is (Wo)Mangrit, this is basically the SBurb terminology for Strength. The more Grit you have, the heavier items you can carry, bigger items you can captchalogue, and just how much damage Melee weapons deal in Strife. Simple enough.

[Gel Viscosity] – Otherwise known as Defence, this stat reduces how much damage you’re capable of taking. Most clothing items can raise this stat pretty well, and TRUST ME when I say that you’re gonna want a lot of this stat.

[Scampering] – Known primarily for being the speed or Dexterity stat, the higher this stat is the faster you can move, dodge, and attack. Time players are known for having a shitload of this stat. Or… Are they just slowing down time for themselves and are moving super fast because of it? I dunno.

[Brain power] – Your inelegance stat. Basically your mental ability to process logic and statistics. If it’s high enough, players may feel a sudden urge to correct grammatical mistakes. I’ve actually had a session where one of my co-player’s Brain power stat was bugged, making it practically invisible to game structures. Every single NPC in the game treated him like he was a moron.

[Magicality] – A weirdly named stat that’s essentially the Wisdom stat. It affects the strength of your abilities and aspect powers. It also increases the strength of magic based Strife weapons, and just how much you can resist aspect damage.

[Linguistics] – The Charisma stat. Higher Linguistics will make people listen to you more, let you haggle and bargain more efficiently, and basically lie better.

 

Game Options

While we’re still not in the game yet, it would be a good idea to discuss the features in the options menu.

[Audio] – The Audio section only really changes ambient music volume, along with the choice of enabling subtitle textboxes. I guess not being able to adjust sound effects and voices is to make the game more realistic.

[Video] – Adjusts the graphical properties of the game. It’s basically just mostly visual filters, and options to help increase frame rates. Very straightforward.

[Enable asset mismatch] – Allows you to join sessions that are modded. Doing so however automatically installs these mods as you join the session.

[Enable Pre-Entry scenario] – Basically a checkbox if you want to do the pre-entry process. You’ll automatically start in post-entry, and you’ll have to Prototype an item into a sprite through a little UI screen before gameplay. It only applies for sessions that you run, though. Not sure why this option isn’t in the Create New Session screen…

 

Well, now that we've covered what should be put into consideration before playing the damn game, it's time we move on to pre-entry.


	4. Pre-Entry

The Entry Process

Once you’ve created or joined a session, you’re now ready to play. The game will plop you in a Randomly Generated Home (If you’ve chosen to create a Custom Character) or a shockingly accurate representation of your own home. I think it has something to do with the game performing a memory scan, and simulating a replica of your abode.

Now comes the important part. Actually getting into the game! Other players will go through the same process as you, but it may depend on how long that may be. The first thing to do is find a Client SBurb disc. You may also choose to find the Sever disc first if you intend on helping your buddy enter. These discs are indestructible, super important, and are usually out of reach. One way or the other the player must find a way to acquire these discs. It’s not too much of a daunting task, they’re usually in a box, or drawer or something.

Once you find the discs, install them onto your computer. There should be a recreation of one in your home, or if you’re playing a Custom Character, there’ll be a computer by default. Anyway, if you install the client disc, you’ll need to have a server player connect to you. The server player can now manipulate and move around parts of your house, ala the Sims. Server players are capable of spending some of your Build Grist (you start with 20 by the way, I’ll get to Grist later) to expand parts of your house. You’ll need a bigger (specifically taller) house after entry.

 

Crucial Game Structures

Now I’ll get into some of the more important things for the Server player to do. Specifically, deploy special structures. In Pre-Entry, 3 machines must be deployed from the Server Player’s Phernalia Registry, along with a Pre-Punched Card. I’ll get into that later.

First, the Cruxtruder. Think a weird boxy platform with like, a cylinder on top of it. You can try turning the wheel on the cylinder thing, but there’s going to be a lid on top preventing whatever’s inside from coming out. As a result, something heavy must be pressed atop the lid. Your Server player can help, but if they choose to use a bit of furniture, stay away for any potential injuries. Once the lid opens, a Cruxite Dowel will pop out, along with a KernelSprite. I’ll cover the sprites and stuff in the next section, so be patient. Now the Cruxtruder can create a whole bunch of Cruxite. You’ll need these dowels for alchemy.

Secondly, the Totem Lathe. This weird little device carves patterns onto these Cruxite Dowels. In order to do so however, you need to insert a punched card into the thing’s card slot. This is what the pre-punched card is for! Since you won’t have the ability to punch cards until entry, carve the code of the pre-punched card into a cruxite dowel. Trust me when I say this, you’ll have a LOT of carved dowels late in the game. I usually just put sticky notes on all of them to keep track of what punch code they’ve got carved.

Thirdly, the Alchemiter. This is the device that will let you perform Alchemy, which is basically spending the Grist you’ve acquired to materialize an item based off a card’s punched code though Cruxite Totems. We’ll discuss the card punching in the next structure, and alchemy in another chapter, but for now you’ll basically use this to scan that Cruxite Totem you carved. The Alchemiter will now produce your Entry Item! Or in a more official term, Cruxite Artefacts. You’ll need these things to enter the Medium, which is the game world. Now, the Alchemiter can be upgraded by the server player attaching a Jumper Block Extension into the Alchemiter, which through inserting punched cards into some attachable slots (which are also provided by the server player) the player can upgrade the Alchemiter. Due to all the shit that can be Captchalogued the possibilities of upgrading are fucking limitess! I’d suggest experimenting, but I’ll list a few that makes it SUPER useful.

Putting in a card with the Jumper Block code just kinda makes the block Merge with the alchemiter, and removes the need to add on new slots. It adds more space, but eh.

Insert a card for the Totem Laythe, and you basically have a totem laythe built into the alchemiter. Not too useful on its own.

Insert a card for a hologram display system? The pedestal for the Cruxite Totems to be scanned on becomes a holographic display, showing you what will be alchemised from your selected Totem. Totally damn useless, since it’s unable to scan the Totem. But…  
Combine it with the Totem Laythe, and you basically have a device that can create holographic dowels by reading punched cards, and then scan those holograms to perform alchemy! You’ll never have to use Cruxite ever again!

Finally, the Punch Designix. This thingy here is a powerful tool that lets you punch codes into cards, so that the Totem Laythe can read them. It’s pretty simple, really. However! In order to create a punched card, you need to use up one of the Captchalog cards in your Sylladex. Don’t worry though, you can literally create new cards through alchemy, and they’re relatively cheap to make. However if you punch a card that has an item in it, that item will no longer be able to be retrieved, so I recommend punching blank cards.

 

All About Sprites

Alright, Sprites! These guys are pretty complex, but I’ll just write down the basics that you should know before entry. Your KernelSprite that came out of that Cruxtruder will need to be prototyped at least ONCE before you enter. To Prototype a sprite? Just throw a random object into it, simple as that. A (Kernel)Sprite can be prototyped at least 2 times. Once you enter the Medium, the Kernel part of the Sprite will separate and split into two, each piece going to the dream moons. Prototyping will also affect some bosses and all your enemies, so uh, don’t prototype anything that would be immensely powerful! It’d also be recommended to leave your second sprite prototyping to after you enter the session, since then it won’t also affect the enemies.

Once the Kernel’s gone, your Sprite will act as your guide for the session, they’ll assist you when you’re wounded and give you some knowledge about the game and your land, but they’ll usually do it all cryptically and stuff. That’s just how sprites work, they won’t tell you the full picture unless you’re far enough in your quest, even if they really want to tell you.

There’s just one last thing you need to know. If you’re doing the Entry sequence, ALWAYS PROTOTYPE YOUR SPRITE. If you don’t prototype the KernelSprite, then the Kernel won’t have any prototyping information to give to the dream moons, preventing the progression of the battlefield growing and making the game unwinnable!

 

Entry Items

While technically called the Cruxite Artefacts, Entry Items are what you need to warp your house into the Medium. These items are usually randomized, and will take on many, many shapes! Usually stuff like a bottle, or a battery, or maybe a little paper fan. Apparently these things are meant to represent departure. Not sure how.

To use your Item, all you have to do is do the first thing you’d think to do with it. Literally, the first thing that comes to your mind with it, it’s how you’ll enter the game. If you get a bottle? Drink it or break it. An Egg? Smash it on the ground or heat it. A cube? Break it with something! A seed? Plant it, obviously. Point is, just do whatever it is you’d first think to do with the item, and you’ll be teleported to the Medium.


	5. Entry

My House has been teleported, what now?

Well, if you’re asking yourself that question, congratulations! You’ve entered the Medium. This is the part where your sprite will explain some of the game lore. The whole point of the game is to create a new universe. See the big ass blue planet thing up in the sky where the sun should be? That’s Skaia, and in the centre of it is a giant chessboard like planet called the battlefield. There’s two kingdoms fighting on it, Prospit, the yellow dream moon orbiting Skaia, and Derse, the Purple dream moon orbiting outside of the Veil (It’s like a big asteroid belt that’s supposed to be like the sort-of-boarder of the session). Now, the battlefield has a purpose. When it receives prototyping information from a player’s sprite, it grows in complexity and becomes a full-blown planet over time instead of a giant chessboard.

 Once it’s reached its full “maturity” a sequence of events must occur to create the new universe. Prospit wants to ensure the new universe is created, while Derse wants to stop it so that the cycle of SBurb’s constant creation through destruction doesn’t continue. Fortunately, this is just a game! Your planet or whatever isn’t gonna be harmed.

Sadly, Prospit, despite being in a stalemate with Derse before the battlefield became more complex, is always destined to lose the war. And then the players start to show up! Now it’s your job to complete your land quests, grow as a person and create the new universe! Also Universes in this game are frogs. I dunno. Frogs.

 

Building

If you haven’t already seen, your server player is able to use build grist to expand upon your house. This is a vital part of the game! See those rings in the sky? You’re going to want your house (Or Dwelling Spire in game terms) to reach those rings, and then late game ALL the way up near Skaia. It’s as simple as that. You can spend build grist to expand upon each part individually but honestly, it’s way less boring and looks slightly better if you just copy and paste floors of their house together. Trust me on this. If you happen to live on an apartment building however don’t expect it to reach a ring already! Your place may be sunken/submerged to reduce its height. Hope you aren’t claustrophobic if you live on lower floors.

 

The gates

I should probably stress how important it is to reach the first gate. Why? There’s two reasons for this. The first one is that it’ll allow you to explore a part of your Land. Yeah, if you wander off before you reach the first gate, you’ll just be sent back to your house. Them’s the breaks. The second reason why is OH GOD SO MANY UNDERLINGS. There’ll be monsters CONSTANTLY spawning around your house, and it may be great for grinding, but if you happen to not like imp house parties that break all your shit and may or may not kill you, start having your server player build.

Gates 3-6 will take you to an area of your land where a crucial Land Quest is gonna take place, while gates 1, 2 and 7 will always have the same role. Gate 1 teleports you to a random area of your Land, and will finally allow you to explore the world without being sent back to the Dwelling Spire. The 2nd gate will always send you to the Land of the next player who has entered after you. It’s like a big daisy chain. The 7th will send you to the lair of your Denizen! Don’t sequence break on this one, trust me. If you can fly you can pretty much enter any gate you want, but just don’t. Your Denizen will basically kill you if you intrude before you’re supposed to be ready to enter.

 

What to do in Serious Worse Case Scenarios

Many, MANY things can go wrong in SBurb. Like, oh my god. Since this a permadeath game, too… You’ll need some advice on what to do when a certain event begins to go down. I won’t, however, discuss what happens when things go SO BAD a session becomes unwinnable, even if you’re the most OP player ever. We’ll get to that in chapter 43. This is more general nuisances and things that can affect players and stuff.

Megalovania:  
The term used when a player begins to powergame. Sometimes players can get way too carried away with becoming the best player possible. They’ll get all high and mighty of themselves, disregard the safety of others and ignore the goal of the game just to be the greatest. The best way to avoid Megalovania is mental buffs up the wazzoo, talking about issues, and occasionally just knocking the megalomaniac the fuck out and putting them in a jail cell of some sort.

Lost in the Void:  
This is when a Void player uses their ability [To Nothing] to send an item into the void. Sometimes, if a Void player is strong enough, they can send NPC’s and enemies into the void! This also extends to players, which is NOT GOOD. The Void won’t kill you though, be glad for that, but it is basically like a “Dead zone” that’s in every single card game anime. You’re stuck in the void with no way out until the Void player uses [From Nothing] to get you back. If your Void player doesn’t know [From Nothing], have them do quests until they learn the damn skill! Getting stuck in the void is a good way to give people time outs, but it sucks if you happen to be a vital player.

Negative Aperture:  
This one is actually more “What to do if your friend is affected by a super OP mental debuff.” Negative Aperture is a status condition in which the affected target will become INCREDBILY pessimistic and depressed up to the point where they will refuse to even move, and what’s worse is that it lasts for the rest of the session. Yeah, SBurb is great at making people feel like shit. If an important player is afflicted with this status condition out in the middle of battle… Yeah. Get them out of there as soon as possible. The only way to cure this status is through an item known as the Mended Heart. It should look like a little crystal heart with a bandage on it. It heals all debuffs, but it’s a store exclusive item costing over Billions. Start filling your Porkhollow.

Core of Darkness:  
Ahh, textbook petty evil. Some players are just gonna be like “hey I wanna fuck everything up because LOL”. Otherwise known as Griefers, Core of Darkness players are just… Eugh. If a CoD player happens to be a part of your session, I would suggest having someone keep a very, VERY close eye on the dude to make sure they don’t mess everything up, lest you wish to start a new session without that prick. Banishing these guys to the void is also a pretty good way of teaching them a lesion. Rage also works well with making them not destroy crap.

Death:  
No, just death in general! I won’t cover when death is permanent at the moment, but I should describe how you’ll want to handle it. Should a player’s realself body die, another player can resurrect them by making their dreamself body their main one. This means that your dreamself will no longer be able to fly and stuff, but that’s a nice price to pay to avoid, y’know, dying. But how do I bring them back, you may be asking? It’s simple.

Y’gotta kiss their dead, lifeless corpse.

No, I’m not joking. This is how you res players (there’s a shitton of other ways but for now we’ll talk about this). Remember, it’s a game. It’s Virtual. Just deal with it man. Pucker up. Or if you manage to have a resurrecting ability on hand, just… Y’know, use it on them. Most res abilities can only be used once per player though.


	6. Alchemy Guide

Alchemy is a hellova complex part of SBurb. Every single thing that you can Captchalog is able to be alchemised with anything! But first off, I need to lay down the rules of Alchemy.

A blank dowel will always result in alchemising a Perfectly Generic Object. It’s a little green cube.

It goes without saying that no item can be alchemised with a PGO. II combining basically overrides the blank card for the PGO, and && combining just makes a basic PGO. C’mon guys, use your brain.

Alchemy is non-specific. If you put in a branded type of biscuit and combine it with an item, it’ll be the same result as if you use a different brand. If the game could acknowledge brands and make all those alchemy results for each and every brand of object, there’d be trillions more combinations possible.

Every single Captcha code has only 8 digits.

The order of ingredients have no effect on the result of Alchemy, just the II and && combinations.

Alright! With those out of the way, Alchemy is actually kinda simple when you think about it. By punching captcha codes onto a captcha card with the Punch Designix, you can insert that punched card into the Totem Laythe to carve a Cruxite Totem, which the Alchemiter then uses grist to produce the item corresponding to the code. Because of this, items can be combined through alchemy!

To combine your items and alchemise new ones, you must fondly regard 2 techniques. The II (OR) combination, which is punching the code of an item into an already pre-punched card to create new punch holes where there isn’t, and && (AND) combination, which is simply pressing two punched cards together to fill in holes. Please note that these combinations have effect on what you alchemise. For instance, the && combination will result in the functionality of both items used for Alchemy to be in the new item. For instance, && combining a spring and a pair of shoes will give you mega-jump shoes or something. II combination on the other hand will only have the functionality of one of the alchemy ingredients. For instance, II combining those shoes and that spring will just make… I dunno, shoes made out of springs? A better example would be II combining a hammer with a cooler, which will result in a hammer with freezing properties. && combining on the other hand just makes a big hammer that you can store ice cream and drinks in.

Because of this you’re going to have to get a bit crafty with how you want alchemising to play out. From what I’ve last heard, I think you’re capable of combining 6 items at once? I think they may have changed it, but if you’ve got an idea for like… A gun that shoots radiation you’ll probably need a regular old pistol, some uranium, a metal or a containment field, and a satellite dish. Think very carefully on the choice of II and && combination, otherwise you might get a nuclear power source that connects to the internet and has guns on the side. Just be careful, too! The more items used in alchemy, and the stronger or more complex a weapon or whatever you want to create is, it’ll cost far more grist.

Was this a short chapter? Yes. The main thing with alchemy is that it’s hard to write about it in detail without getting all mathematical and stuff. I am not a maths person, so my biggest piece of advice that I should offer is just to figure the whole damn thing out for yourself. It’s fun to play around with, if you have the grist.


	7. Strife, and the Strife Specibus

Strife is the game term for a battle. Whenever a battle between a monster, or a consort or maybe even another player occurs, big orange flashing letters appear in front of you declaring STRIFE. It’s basically the game brining you into “battle mode.” It’s simple, just fight as if you were fighting off some guy in a trench coat mugging you in an alleyway!

Now, this being a video game, you’re bound to need a weapon. Fortunately, this is what the Strife Specibus is for! A Strife Specibus is a special kind of Captcha card in a sort. The Strife Specibus allows you to carry a weapon around for combat (and out of combat) without having to bide with the rules of your sylladex’s Fetch Modus. “Captchaloging” a weapon into the specibus is known as Allocating it. Allocated Strife Specibi will then get a little pixel symbol on the front indicating that it has a selected weaponkind.

 But what does this mean? You may ask. Well, allocating a strife specibus gives it a sort of “filter.” Say, if you allocate a wrench into your specibus, you can only use wrench based objects as weapons. Of course, you can negate this by finding additional blank strife specibi, letting you use more than one type of weapon, but those are super freaking hard to find. The plus side though is that Strife Specibi can hold multiple weapons at once. I believe the max amount was 8.

Miscellaneous note: if your Strife Specibus has a name like “Bowlingballkind” space limitations causes the Strife Specibus card to read it as “bwlinbllkind.” Apparently, the name can only be 12 letters maximum.

 

The 5 kinds of Weaponkinds

In any RPG you have daggers, bows, swords, hammers, all that. It’s kind of the same for Strife Specibi. I mean, you can use ANYTHING as a weapon thanks to the specibi, but there’s about 5 distinct types.

Meleekind: Aaah, the classic. A lot of players are gonna have meleekind weapons, and they’re relatively simple to use too! Just bash people over the heads with them, stab them, slash them, ect. Meleekinds, depending on the size or weight require one or two hands to properly wield. Really big weapons can be dual wielded if you happen to have enough Mangrit though.  
Examples: Hammerkind, Bladekind, Fankind, Spearkind.

Rangedkind: While constantly stabbing people is fun, shooting them is much more effective, at least at long range. Rangedkind applies to bows, cannons, guns, and slingshots. Just make sure you at least know how to fire a gun, or hit a target if you intend on making this your Specibus.  
Examples: Pistolkind, Bowkind, Riflekind, Shotgunkind.

Magickind: Magickind weapons are pretty sweet. It’s like casting abilities without using your Pluck. Granted these weapons will usually only be one trick ponies in that they only really cast one kind of spell on their own, but still cool to have a magic wand. Most people use Magickind weapons to amplify their abilities by casting them through the weapon.  
Examples: Wandkind, Staffkind, Bookkind, Ringkind.

Puppetkind: An… Unusual type of Weaponkind, as it lets the wielder fight alongside a “partner”, or remote control their selected weapon. For instance, Robotkind allows you to remote control a robot to fight for you. Expect some people to get a bit attached to their weapons. Other instances of Puppetkinds allow wielders to control enemies! It’s crazy.  
Examples: Mronettekind, Robotkind, Spintopkind, Hologramkind.

Trickykind: Trickykind is given its name for basically being “miscellaneous” weapons. Essentially, items that are hard to use as a proper weapon, such as Gnomekind. How do you fight with a garden gnome? Ugh. Eitherway you’re going to want to have to get super creative if you want to properly fight with them.  
Examples: Ddgeballkind, Cardkind, Statuekind, Pntbrushkind.

Miscellaneous note: There is a very, VERY rare kind of Strife Specibus that cannot be obtained by normal means, and can only be found randomly in loot drops or chests, sometimes usually found on a Rage Player’s land. This, is Jokerkind. Jokerkind is the absolute GOD of Strife Specibi, as it is basically allocated to EVERYTHING. Yeah, no weapon restrictions! If you happen to find one of these Specibi, I envy you so much.

 

Commonly Used Specibi:

SBurb players tend to stick to a certain Weaponkind for many reasons. Maybe it’s sentimental, or easy to use, or it just happens to be their actual favourite weapon. Well, I’ve made a list of some of the more commonly used weapons I’ve seen in the game.

Bladekind: Some argue to call it Swordkind, but come on, the name is way cooler! And honestly, a lot of people like swords. Nuff said about that.

YoYokind: I really like this weaponkind. It can spin, it twirls, it can slice, whack, decapitate, and ensnare! Very versatile if you at least know what you’re doing.

Needlekind: While I’ve seen a lot of players use Needlekind mostly for melee, some players like to use Needlekind as magical weapons. It’s a pretty good idea! You know, having a freaking magic wand that can impale people is awesome.

2xPistolkind: Ohhh god you know how many noobs use these? So many. Duel Wielding guns is cool, but don’t expect to hit much. Thank god SBurb doesn’t use an ammo system.

Umbrellakind: Umbrellakind looks dumb, but it’s pretty good for both offensive purposes, and using the brolly for defence. I actually really like this one.

Ribbonkind: YES. This is by far, my favourite type of Strife Specibi. It’s so great! It’s like an elegant, silky whip, and it is GREAT to just grab enemies and flail them around.

Signpostkind: Using a stop sign is… Surprisingly effective. It’s a great choice if you ever want to whack people out of the way while also slicing them up at the same time! Be like an insane zombie clown!

 

Aspect Damage:

Some weapons are infused with Aspects to add certain effects. It’s kind of like using elemental powers in some games, but instead of some elements being advantageous over others, it just causes debuffs. Kind of boring if you ask me.

Breath Damage: This one is actually fun, as it can cause enemies to be sent FLYING through the air! Great for playing Imp Baseball.

Light Damage: Has a chance to inflict a luck debuff on the target.

Time Damage: May inflict the [Slo-Mo] debuff, which makes enemies move slower.

Space Damage: Space weapons can sometimes either make enemies teleport someplace random, or may appearify something damaging on top of them.

Hope Damage: Hope damage can cause enemies to become all… Sad and junk, hopeless, y’know? Yeesh, Hope debuffs are weird.

Life Damage: A rare one, but plants may suddenly grow around the enemy, hindering movement.

Heart Damage: Applies the [Flippy flopper] debuff, which makes enemies cycle emotions like crazy. One moment they’ll be bawling their eyes out, the next thing you know they’re on the floor laughing until they can’t breathe.

Void Damage: Typically lowers an enemy’s maximum health.

Blood Damage: Damages bonds with other enemies! Perfect for turning huge enemies against the smaller ones.

Mind Damage: Mind damage can make foes into blathering idiots for a little bit.

Rage Damage: Honestly? A bit boring. Rage damage just has a super high chance of getting critical hits.

Doom Damage: Occasionally gives a chance to poison enemies. Ho hum.


End file.
